In the Times Magazine piece “An Agoraphobe Goes to the Grocery Store,” with illustrations by Nata Metlukh, Sara Benincasa writes with humor and pathos about her lifelong struggle with a phobia that makes going outside extremely challenging:
On a crisp winter afternoon in Chicago, I anxiously donned a very puffy coat.
My large gray cat, Polly, stared up at me, her green eyes telegraphing a message:
Where the hell do you think you’re going?
“I just need to get some food,” I said. “I’ll be OK.”
I took a deep breath, opened the door and walked out.
I have agoraphobia, an anxiety disorder that takes its name from the Greek root words for “market” and “fear.”
Most people think agoraphobia is only a fear of leaving the home. In reality, it’s a lot more complex.
My first symptoms showed up when I was 8: fear of cars, buses, planes, a terror of nausea and a general discomfort when leaving home.
I despised field trips because they disrupted my routine. I didn’t know I had a mental illness. I just thought I was weird.
By 16, I was frequently overcome by irrational fear. My entire being would erupt in what I now know was a panic attack: nausea, racing heartbeat, shortness of breath, disorientation.
The anxiety would have been understandable in the face of an oncoming truck —
but made no sense when standing in front of an array of cereal boxes.
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